New Hunter, New Prey
by Allard-Liao
Summary: An ordinary geneticist gets an extraordinary wake-up call. How will he handle the consequences? Rated T for violence, may be rated M later.
1. Prologue

June 12 | 0641 Hours

MHI Headquarters, Cazador, Alabama

Begin Log:

"My name is, soon to be 'was,' Jeremiah Ribasso Lusano. I have been working here at MHI for about fourteen years. Every second of my off time, though that doesn't account for much, has been spent trying to find a cure for my…'condition.' Thus far, my efforts have proven unsuccessful. Scoffs That's sure putting it lightly. I, an expert in genetics, can't even begin to unravel the mysteries of my own genomic patterns fourteen-and-a-half years after they were rewritten; they have become that complex and convoluted. And the entirety of our mythological library contains no information on even the slightest possibility of there being a cure, barring divine intervention. While I enjoy the power and durability that comes with my 'condition' (many call it a curse), I can't bear the thought of what might happen if I lose control, though my inhuman side doesn't put up much of a fight for control anymore, unlike that first year.

I realize that you may be confused at this moment, so I will start at the very beginning.


	2. The Attack

May 13 ~1900-2030 hours

Downtown Tucson, Arizona

I was somewhat of a normal 32-year-old man. Only somewhat, as I am autistic. I, as I already said, was also a geneticist; I don't mean to brag, but I was one of the geneticists who helped decode the human genome, so I know a bit about what makes the human body tick.

I lived in Sierra Vista, but I was taking classes in self-defense, which were available in Tucson. As it turned out, I was to be promoted to the top of the class on the seventeenth, my birthday. To celebrate, I decided to take a walk through town. When I was about half a mile down Third Street, "bicycle boulevard," I heard a female voice utter from the shadows just outside the reach of a streetlamp, "Nice night for a walk, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is," I replied as I looked up at the waning gibbous moon. After a few seconds, I looked back at the lady and added, "I'm sorry. Can I help you ma'am?"

"Actually, you can help me get some food," she replied as she stepped into the yellow-orange light.

I immediately noticed two oddities that notated some inhuman genes running through her DNA. The first giveaway was that her eyes reflected a dull golden light that covered each eye to the point that I could not tell what her natural eye color was. The second peculiarity that manifested in my mind was actually a collection: she was covered in fur, had claw-tipped hands, and, when she dropped the hood of her hoodie, a fully feline face stared at me. "What the hell…?"

She laughed, a sound that defied adjectives both angelic and demonic. "I love it when my prey has that reaction," she cackled as she charged toward me.

Did I mention that my self-defense classes were in Battojutsu and Iaido? She was on me in a second, but, in that time, I was able to draw my wakizashi, slash her belly, and stab her through the heart.

She stumbled back, staring at the shortsword's hilt in shock, as if the weapon had magically appeared. After a few seconds, she laughed again. This time, her laugh was the laugh of someone who was impressed. "Not bad for a human." She slowly drew the two-foot-long blade from her chest and threw it to the ground, embedding it in a sidewalk crack. "But that's not going to save your flesh from my teeth and claws," she continued as she drew a spatha from a sheath on her back that had been hidden by her hood. "Don't you know the first thing about killing lycanthropes?" she finished as she twirled the blade in her hand and began to circle around closer.

I drew my katana and began to do the same, blade pointing toward her. We both did nothing but circle each other for several seconds, scanning each other, waiting for the other to falter, to provide an opening, a weakness through which to deliver a mortal wound. Her jab about my lack of knowledge about lycanthropic species had some basis. I was crazy about werewolves, owning several novels on the subject, but I was unaware of even the possibility of the existence of other species of lycanthropes. _Let's hope that all lycanthropes have the same weaknesses_, I thought as I ran through my options for taking her down. Silver? I didn't have any and we were nowhere near a jewelry store. Deal enough damage? I wouldn't be able to do so in the time I had. That left one option: detach or destroy her brain.

At that moment, we both decided to force an opening. We charged each other, our blades met with a titanic clang, and she flicked her sword up, throwing me ten feet. I rolled upright just in time to block her overhead chop. I rolled further with the blow, opening her legs for a kick that swept her off her feet. As she fell, I swung for the opening, but she was able to bring her spatha back up in time to block my blow. After she shoved me away, we each allowed the other a few seconds to recover. She took a fencing stance, and we began trading light strikes and minimal parries, probing each other's defenses. At this point, her advantages in strength and stamina became obvious. She was wielding her sword with only one hand, but she was delivering more powerful blows than I could, even though I was using two hands. Also, I could feel myself beginning to tire, while she seemed to find more reserves of energy within herself with every swing. Then, I decided to disarm her, to level the playing field, as it were. After her next swing, I sidestepped, brought my sword around in a parabolic arc, and smashed it into the sword-guard of her spatha. Taken by surprise, she was unable to tighten her grip, and the weapon fell to the ground.

My moment of triumph was short-lived, however. She punched me in the chest, I felt my sternum crack, and I was flung across the street until I collided with a tree. My katana was wrenched from my grasp by the impact. I recovered and looked up; just in time to tell my body to roll to the side and get moving again. When I finished my roll, a metallic thunk told me that I had successfully dodged the item she had thrown, whatever it was. I turned and stared at the spatha embedded halfway in the tree for a second.

Then she landed on me. As she tackled me to the ground, she growled, "I tire of this. Now die!" She reared her head back and opened her jaws. Knowing what was coming, I thrust my left arm up in front of my throat while I began to reach behind my back with my right hand and she lunged for my throat.

I screamed in pain as her teeth clamped down and began trying to crush their way through my radius and ulna. I gritted my teeth against any further screams, and I smiled as my fingers came into contact with the rubber-coated grip of my last weapon. I drew it, jammed it into her lower jaw, and yelled, "Eat this, bitch!" Then I pulled the trigger. The decently deep bark and hefty recoil of the pistol were enough to raise her eyebrows. The small storm of metal that tore out of the Winchester PDX-1 .410 gauge shell thrashed any further reaction she might have had. She released and stumbled back in pain. I stood and drilled the second shell into her neck. I overcompensated for recoil and her sternal notch became the goalpost for the third round. By this time, adrenaline was killing the entirety of the pain in my arm, so I brought my left hand up to support the Taurus Judge Public Defender for better aiming. I took careful aim and slowly stroked the trigger for my fourth shot. Now, I will admit that, at the time, I was not an exceptionally accurate shot. As a rule, however, the closer you are to the target, the higher your accuracy. The fourth shell tore off her left ear. As her head twisted with the impact, I took a step closer and fired my fifth and final round. Time appeared to slow as I concentrated on the flight path of the three centimeter-wide discs that comprised the bulk of the shell's impact power. Either that was the money shot, or I was doomed. As I watched, her left eye exploded in a spray of blood, bone, and ocular fluid.

As she collapsed to the ground, I stared at the corpse for a couple of seconds before letting out a whoop of triumph. _I just killed a lycanthrope!_

Then the "corpse" rose. I tried frantically to fish out a sixth shell from my pocket, even though I knew it was a futile effort. She pounced on me and tore five deep troughs in my torso before I could even grab one shell. One hand-paw grabbed my jaw and twisted my head back and to the side, exposing my throat, while the other tore my revolver from my grasp. She glared at me with her remaining ruby eye and growled, "Close. But not close enough. Now you die!"

I closed my eyes and waited for the bite that would tear my throat out and kill me. It never came. Instead, I heard the sound of a metal blade impaling flesh and bone, and her body went limp. I risked opening my eyes and saw the blade of a katana (not my own; I could tell from the numerous tiny nicks and scratches.) less than an inch in front of my face. I followed the blade with my eyes until the point where it had punched through the back of her mouth.

Then my savior withdrew his blade from the corpse, which, now truly dead, promptly fell over me. I heard footsteps, then the sound of metal scraping on concrete, and the stranger carefully threaded my wakizashi through the wound his katana had made.

As I began to lose consciousness, I felt him smear a slightly viscous liquid over the bite wound and heard him say, "Do not tell anyone about either me or the fact that you were bitten. Tell about the latter, and the government will make you disappear." When he finished speaking, he wiped the liquid off of my arm, stood, and began to walk away.

"Wait!" I was able to croak out. When he stopped, I asked my question: "Who are you?"

He stood still for a moment, apparently thinking on whether he should tell me or not. Finally, he responded with, "Lejule." He then walked out of earshot as sirens approached. Then I blacked out.


	3. Job Offer

I awoke later in UMC's trauma center. The first thing I noticed was the throbbing pain in my chest. At least that pain meant that I was still alive. The black-suited man and woman, the woman sitting on a stool, the man standing at parade rest, both looking so ecstatic they could cycle their bowel movements told me, through their very presence, that I might not live much longer. "I haven't seen any aliens recently. I swear," I quipped, trying to lighten everyone's mood.

"Very funny, Mr. Lusano," Sitter (my temporary nickname for her) said in a tone that indicated that she had not found my line humorous in any way, shape, or form. She took off her sunglasses, rubbed the frustration out of her eyes, and continued, "I'm Agent Santores. This is Agent Franks, one of our enforcers."

"Salutations," I replied tentatively. _At least they're willing to talk._ Franks merely grunted in response. _Or not._

Santores continued by demanding, "Tell us what you know about…that." At "that," she gestured to the five deep furrows in my chest, only four of which were covered in bandages.

Thinking quickly, I lied, "A crazed mugger jumped me and laid my chest open with a pitchfork, so I shot him."

"That only explains four of the gashes, Mr. Lusano."

_Right. Pitchforks only have four tines._ "He was high as a kite on something because he got up and slashed me with a knife. I shot him in the head, and he went down, permanently."

She leaned in, said, "Would you have wanted that for your cover-up story?" and tossed a copy of the Arizona Daily Star onto my hospital bed. Just barely making the front page was an article whose headline read "Local man fights off rabid puma."

"Well, I would prefer the truth, but I know that my best fate in that scenario would be eternal residence in an insane asylum."

"More along the lines of Agent Franks paying you a special visit, and then we dump you on the South side of the Fence and blame the cartels." The emotionless tone she delivered that line was the only motivation I would ever need to keep my mouth shut about the incident. She then pulled out a pad of paper and began to recite some notes. "At 8:37 P.M. three nights ago, you encountered a lycanthrope, a cougar in this case, and, after a brief swordfight and you pumping a few shotgun shells into its body, were knocked to the ground where she clawed open your chest. You then drew a wakizashi and stabbed the werecougar through the base of its neck, severing its spinal cord. Do I have all of the events correct?"

"Yes."

She flipped the notepad closed and cautioned, "There is a possibility that you were turned anyway, as the venom that causes lycanthropy is carried in small amounts on their claws."

"I bet that there is a foolproof test…"

"We have already sent for blood tests."

"…that we can do in this room. Lycanthropes are highly allergic to even so little as physical contact with silver, right?"

"Their blood has a bad reaction to silver," Franks said as his first words today. I had almost forgotten he was there. "Are you suggesting that we shoot you to make sure?" he asked as he reached into his jacket.

"No. I have five open wounds. I bet that you two have silver bullets. Lay one in one of those wounds. In theory, if I was infected, my blood should boil under the bullet."

They glanced at each other and shrugged. "Well, he won't be able to discharge the round," Santores muttered as she drew her own weapon, a police-issue Bushmaster stockless rifle. She cycled the bolt, ejected a single 5.56 x 45 millimeter round, and passed the round to me. As I took the bullet, Franks drew his own weapon, a subcompact Glock 29 with an attached silencer. I gathered what courage I still had, because I knew that I was signing my own death warrant, and pressed the bullet against the edge of my sternum, which had been cleaved in half by the cougar's middle claw. To my surprise and relief, there was no reaction between my blood and the silver. Franks holstered his weapon and Santores actually chuckled.

"Well, that should be conclusive enough for you Feds," I said as I wiped the blood off of the round and handed it back to the female agent, who reloaded her Bushmaster and slid it back under her jacket.

Then there was a knock on the door. "May I come in?" asked a male with a Floridian accent.

"No!" Franks barked at the visitor.

"Oh, hello to you, too."

"Franks. You are merely a guest here," I admonished. To the visitor, I replied, "Come in."

In walked an African American with dreadlocks. "So, this is our cougar-killer. Nice work."

"**Were**cougar," I muttered under my breath. Out loud, I asked, "Who are you?"

"Oh. Sorry. John Jermain Jones. Friends call me Trip."

"Jeremiah Lusano. Friends call me 'Bear,'" I replied as I shook his hand.

"I can see why." After all, I was 6'3" and weighed 277 pounds, though I had lost a little weight since the attack. "Anyway, I work with MHI and my boss wanted to ask if you wanted to make a career out of what you did."

"Which was?"

He grinned. "Killed a monster."

Santores opened her mouth to protest, but she was interrupted by her cell phone going off with "Bring Him Home, Santa." As she moved to answer the phone, she answered the three questioning glares (Yes, even Franks was wondering why she had that ringtone.) by snapping, "What? FYI, my husband is deployed in Afghanistan and I lost my uncle in Vietnam." She then turned her attention entirely to the phone call. "Yes… This is she…Yes?" She perked up, and then her shoulders slumped. "Understood." She put her phone in her pocket, looked at Franks, and jerked her head toward the door.

Franks nodded and followed her as she left. "Well, whatever test they sent for to check if you were infected came back negative," Trip said after the door closed behind them. He then turned back to me and added, "I'll leave you to your rest. In the meantime, if you're interested," He trailed off for a moment as he pulled a business card out of his wallet. "I only have my team lead's card, but give us a call." He handed me the card and turned to leave.

"Wait. How's the pay?"

"Better than you were making before this."

He then left and closed the door behind him. I pondered for a moment, and then I examined the card. "Monster Hunter International. Monster problems? Call the professionals. Established 1895." Someone had applied a couple of layers of White-Out and scrawled, "Peace through superior firepower!"

I smiled, remembering that one of the members of a BattleTech fan site I used to visit had that phrase as his signature. I then read the contact information, which was the phone number and the team lead's name: Owen Z. Pitt.


	4. Brave New World

My hospital stay passed relatively quickly. I was allowed to head home after a week. Two additional weeks later, I was sitting on my back porch, sipping a vanilla Coke Zero®, watching the sunset…and occasionally glancing at the MHI business card. There were two logos: on the back was a green circle with a horned smiley face possessing an ear-to-ear smile and "devious" eyebrows as its only expression. On the front was a battered soldier, wearing tattered armor, wielding a shotgun, and performing what I could best describe as a Dragonball-Z Kamehameha.

Then there was a knock at my front door. I got up, put my soda on the table on the porch, drew my Judge, and advanced toward my front door. For the first time in my life, I regretted not getting a door with a peephole. I unlocked the door, wrapped my fist around the doorknob, took a deep breath, and yanked the door open. I was ready to shoot whatever was on the other side. To my surprise, there was nothing. I looked left, right, and up, but I could not even find evidence that someone was even there.

I shook my head, shut and locked the door, and turned to resume my watch of the sunset. Them my blood ran cold. Standing a mere two feet in front of me was an enormous, white-furred werewolf, leaning against my computer desk. A large trench coat lay folded on the desk. "You left your soda outside," he said as he held up the can for emphasis. "I brought it inside to prevent the insects from drinking it," he added as he set the can down on the desk. "And I am not the enemy here, so you can put your weapon down."

I had forgotten about the revolver. I glanced at it, and then I returned my gaze to the werewolf and said, with more defiant confidence than I possessed, "Give me a good reason why I should do that instead of shooting you to make sure that you do not kill me."

"I will give you three reasons. First, if I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead. Second, I would be able to disarm you before you could raise you Magnum Edition Judge up to even so little as a worrying firing angle. Third, I saved your life, so, technically, you owe me."

"Wait. Saved–?"

He shifted to his human form and said, "Maybe this will refresh your memory." Faster than I thought any physical being should have a right to be, he had drawn a katana from underneath the coat, crossed the distance between us, twisted my head to the side, and stabbed the sword through the air an inch in front of my face.

I studied the blade and mulled over the voice. Then my memory clicked. "Lejule?"

He backed off and resheathed the katana as he put on the coat and strapped on the scabbard, smiling. "You guessed my name correctly on the first try. I applaud."

"Why are you here?"

"Two reasons. One, a friend in the government told me that they finally calculated the PUFF bounty for the werecougar you killed."

"With your help. By the way, what is PUFF?"

"Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund. Established in 1901 by then-President Theodore Roosevelt. PUFF pays any U.S. resident when he or she kills a monster, with the exception of government employees." He reached into one of the pockets of the coat and pulled out an envelope with no markings on it. "Here is your payment."

I cautiously took the envelope from him and used the front sight of my Judge as a letter opener. Inside was a check from the Departments of Homeland Security and the Treasury made out to me. Then I looked at the value of the check, and my jaw and my gun both dropped to the floor. I stumbled back into the wall beside the door and slid to the floor. "That can't be for real. One million dollars for one?"

Lejule nodded. "She was an old, powerful bitch of a feline. She had been hunting people since a skinwalker war band annihilated the Roanoke colony."

"Skinwalker?

"Native American lycanthrope. Which brings me to my second reason for being here," he replied as he transformed back into an anthropomorphic wolf and turned to watch the last vestige of sunset disappear behind the Huachucas. "It is time."

As he said that, the nerves in my jaw and legs began to burn with an indescribable pain. I screamed because of it. In between ripples of pain, I managed to moan, "What is…happening…to me?"

"Tonight is the night of your first full moon. The pain will pass soon."

I could not reply. I thought that I had known what pain was. Boy was I proven wrong. I, thankfully, blacked out when my jaws stretched to the point that the individual calcium fibers began to tear.

I awoke slowly. The first sound I heard was Lejule's voice saying, "Be careful getting up. Blacking out from the pain happens to every first-timer. No exceptions."

I tried to reply, but it came out as a batch of meows and other feline vocalizations. _What the–?_

"That is another fact about newly created skinwalkers. They have to adapt their capacity for speech, which takes time. Usually, the process takes around thirteen lunar cycles."

_Thir–? A year?_

"Yes. However, you can lessen that time by staying in your cougar form and practicing continuously. That should allow you to adapt your voice in a fortnight or two." I smiled, but he held up a hand to forestall my compliment. He then issued the following caveat: "But there is one severe drawback to this approach. You must, literally, disappear from the world for the duration. No social interactions. We need to keep our existence secret. Otherwise, humans, out of mere fear, would begin trying to exterminate us."

I nodded in understanding. _Might as well begin restoring muscle memory._

We spent the rest of the night training me to perform my normal daily tasks using my cougar form. Wielding my swords correctly was not a problem; Lejule proved to be an excellent sensei and sparring partner, and I became more proficient with my katana than I ever had when I was human. The tasks that took the most time to relearn were the delicate, precise tasks, mainly because of my claws and enhanced strength. After several glasses were scratched and/or shattered, I mastered retracting my claws and applying the right amount of power.

With that out of the way and a couple of hours remaining until daybreak, I thought to Lejule, _Want to watch a movie?_

He produced the wolfish equivalent of a smile. "Why not?" We walked over to my video cabinet, and his eyes flicked from one title to the next. "Interesting collection," he commented as he looked at my collection of biological documentaries.

_Well, I am a geneticist_.

"Actually, I was referring to these," he elaborated as he laid the tips of his claws on the shelf that contained my science-fiction movies.

_Oh. I like to keep an open mind_.

He nodded in respect. "That is a valuable thing to possess. Especially in the world that you have been forced to open your eyes to."

As he continued to peruse my video library, I admitted, _I don't have any werewolf movies. Sorry._

Lejule laughed heartily. "I do not know how you came to that conclusion, but most skinwalkers do not obsessively examine humanity's interpretations of our existence." He reached into my fantasy section and pulled out a boxed set of DVDs, chuckling, "One of the rules of humanity: your inner child never truly goes away."

_Yeah. Saw it when I was twenty. Found their lives easier to understand than my own._

"I can fully identify with you. I have watched this world become this crazy and complex, and I yearn for the simpler days when humankind lived in perfect harmony with the natural world."

I took the DVDs out of his hand, carefully, and asked, _Yeah? And when was that?_

"Between five and ten millennia ago."

_Ancestral stories?_

"Personal experience."

_Ah. Wait. You mean to say that we exist until we are killed?_

"Yes."

_And judging by the fact that you're still here after all this time, we skinwalkers are bloody hard to kill?_

"Correct."

I pondered that knowledge for a moment before putting Disk One of the series into my DVD player, turned on my TV, and settled in for a long _Redwall_ marathon.

After a few episodes, the ancient werewolf commented, "By the way, you will bear those for the rest of your life." He pointed at my abdomen without taking his eyes off of the screen. I cocked an eyebrow in confusion, and then I looked where he was pointing. They took me a moment to find, but, as I combed my handpaw through my fur, I finally found the five parallel scars the cougaress had carved into my torso. "Scars you gain before your first change heal as they normally would on a human. After your first change, only one source of wounds will leave scars; our ability to heal is that powerful."

_Silver?_

"The bite of another skinwalker." He stood and walked over to my east-facing window, assuming a parade-rest stance when he arrived, showing that his tail had been truncated to only three inches. "I have more than enough battle scars to prove that."

_The most prominent being your bitten-off tail._

He turned his head to look at me and replied, "Yes." He turned back to the window and added, "That was my very first permanent post-change injury. Courtesy of my own brother, for goodness' sake."

_Why'd he bite your tail off?_

"He had become incensed that, even after four attempts, he had no children, but my wife and I had a son without even trying. He spent his rage killing everyone in our village except for my son, who was hunting alongside me, and my wife, who my brother tried to rape."

_That is just evil._

"He believed that, since she had already sired a half-skinwalker child, she could do so again, overlooking the facts that she was in her forties and she had had no children in sixteen years." He sighed and brushed a hand over the stump of his tail. "I fought him off, allowing my family to escape, but he bit my tail off at some point during the battle." The tips of the hairs of his fur began to glow golden-orange as he became backlit by the sunrise. "You have survived your first full moon without attacking anyone. If you want to kill monsters for a living, you have two options. One, there are skinwalkers, led by me, who have vowed to hunt down and eliminate the skinwalkers who followed my brother as he began to hunt humans for food."

_What happened to him?_

He sighed and drew his katana. "I drove this sword through his skull on the winter solstice." He resheathed it and continued, "Among us you would have shelter, protection, and the best martial training money cannot buy. Also, we have an entire town that has agreed to keep our existence secret; you can take your cougar form whenever you want. Your other option is them." He gestured to where I had placed the MHI business card. "They will accept you if you can prove that you are no threat to humanity, which will be very hard for you to prove. The best part of the job is the pay. Some of their wealthiest employees have fortunes I could only dream of. Also, where we specialize in hunting rogue skinwalkers, MHI hunts anything evil. Safety or profit. Your choice."

I thought back to the million-dollar check for slaying the werecougar. _I'll get back to you on that._


	5. The Interview

The next two weeks passed relatively quickly. With nothing else to do, I continued my self-training. I also decided to improve my video game scores; reaching "Nova" from "Lieutenant Colonel, Grade 3" in twelve days had to be some sort of record.

During those two weeks, I also pondered the two job offers I'd been given since the attack. By the end of the fourteenth day, I had made my choice.

Three days later, there came the knock on my door that I had been expecting since I had made the call. I walked up to the door in my fully-clothed human form, of course, opened it, and stated cheerily, "Good afternoon, Trip." I looked at his companion and asked, "Would I be wrong in assuming that this is Mr. Pitt?"

"Yes," the man replied with a southern accent. He held out his hand. "Earl Harbinger."

"Jeremiah Lusano," I replied as I shook his hand. He had a crushing grip, but mine was just as strong. His eyes widened as if he was surprised that my handshake was just as strong as his. "Pleasure to meet you. Come in, both of you. Can I get you anything to drink?"

"Beer," Earl replied as he walked in and settled into my rocking chair.

"Sorry. I do not keep beer in the house." He looked slightly crestfallen. "I have something far stronger." I strolled to my refrigerator, opened it, pulled out a thermos, poured out a double-shot of the alcoholic beverage, and handed the glass to Earl. I quickly stepped back, unsure of how a non-human would react to that near-volatile drink; Harbinger was definitely not human: his scent advertised that fact, loud and clear. It was similar to Lejule's, but different in a way that I cannot explain. He sniffed the drink for a second before downing it all with a single swallow.

He was fine for a moment. Then the effects of the alcohol kicked in. His eyes widened, he blinked several times, and he shook his head to clear it. "Wow. What was that?"

"That is what the Battletech universe calls a 'PPC,'" I replied with a laugh. I tossed the thermos to him and added, "I pop a glass or two when I want to have philosophical discussions with inanimate objects."

"What's its composition?"

"Four parts Everclear, one part bourbon. That is the version I prefer. There are five other variations, but I prefer the strength of the bourbon."

He tossed the thermos back to me and complemented, "Thanks for helping me find a new drink to enjoy once in a while."

I shrugged. "We help our own, don't we? Semper Fi, right?"

He chuckled. "Semper Fi."

"Trip? You want anything?"

"Coke, if you've got it. I don't want a drop of that 'PPC.'"

"Good choice. Hope you don't mind a Zero," I replied as I grabbed a can and rolled it to him before grabbing a can for myself.

"Thanks." Trip cleared his throat and began his pitch. "As you already know, monsters exist. There are a few groups that wage a secret war against them. MHI is the best in the business. We're the ones people turn to when all other forces have failed."

"Even the Feds?"

"Especially the Feds," Harbinger replied with, what I could best guess was, gloating contempt.

"Good money in pounding monsters?" I already knew it to be true, but I wanted to hear it from an MHI employee.

"Excellent. I made over a hundred grand in my first month." I whistled in appreciation.

"To be fair," Earl admonished, "We did have a record-shattering series of hunts that month. Six Master vampires and the Cursed One."

I decided not to interrupt and ask who the heck the "Cursed One" was. Trip glared at Harbinger and continued, "We tried to do the paperwork for the PUFF bounty you earned, but the Department of the Treasury told us that it had already been done."

"Yeah." I picked up the envelope from the kitchen counter and flicked it over to Harbinger. "Take a gander," I suggested as I walked over to and sat down at my computer desk.

He opened it, looked at the check, and his eyes widened for the third time since his arrival. "In my entire life, I've never seen a PUFF bounty set this high for any lycanthrope. And I should know, as I'm…" He caught himself before he could admit that he was a lycanthrope. "…the foremost expert on lycanthropes," he recovered.

"Nice save," I muttered. Aloud, I said, "There's an explanatory note in the envelope."

Trip snatched the envelope and extracted the note. He read it silently, and his eyes widened as he read the presumed birth date. "1563? Earl, are lycanthropes even capable of living that long?" he asked as he handed the note to the senior Hunter.

Earl glanced over at the note, his eyes skipping straight to the signature at the end. "Well, it's possible, I guess. I mean, the oldest confirmed lycanthrope on record was almost seven hundred years old, but some legends say that they can live forever." He examined the note for a moment more before bringing the conversation back on track. "We are currently recruiting new Hunters to replace good men we've lost in recent years. The personality we look for is 'fight' rather than 'flight.'

"The fact that you decided to duke it out with a four-hundred-some-odd-year-old lycanthrope with, what amounts to, a popgun, a knife, and a sword, and whupped her ass, showed us that you have that personality."

"Soldiers have that personality. I'm no soldier."

"But you were," Trip countered as he pulled a manila folder out of the briefcase he had brought with him. He opened it and began reading, ""Jeremiah, I can't pronounce that, Lusano."

"My middle name's Italian for 'bear.' I was a big kid growing up."

"You still are. You come from two lines of warriors. Your mother was an IDF sniper. Your great-grandfathers fought on both sides of the European theatre of World War II, one in the U.S. Marine Corp, one in the Italian Army. Your dad was a hardcore gun nut who, through familial connections, amassed a large number of military-grade weapons."

"Yeah. I was a bit surprised when he brought the M2 Browning machine gun into the house."

"But he died in a house fire fourteen years ago and you moved back to the U.S."

"The Mafia doesn't take kindly to refusal," I said ruefully. "He died with his fingers gripping the M2's trigger, having mowed down a team of Mafia hit men. Once they realized that a full assault was impossible, they tossed a few Molotovs into the house and walked away."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"Eh. As you said, it was fourteen years ago. I lost my mother, Mariah, six years earlier. She just went on patrol one day and vanished."

"Wait. I've worked with her. '99. I was doing some freelance hunting of a pride of werelions. She was hunting them, too. She became a Huntress after she found that one of her targets had a golem for a bodyguard."

I was silent for a long time. Then I asked, "Why didn't she write?"

"She wasn't allowed to."

Trip went back to reading from my file. "Back to you. Age 33, now. Born on the outskirts of Rome. Followed in your American grandfather's footsteps and served for nine years in the U.S. Marine Corp, earned a black belt in their martial arts program. You were your squad's designated marksman before being promoted to a sniper, averaging sub-MOA with every round, even without a scope. Your rifle scores are incredible. Now, the Department of Homeland Security has a warning set up for you because you're a foreign national with familial connections to Mafia, military, and paramilitary organizations. After retiring from the Marines, you attended the University of Arizona and earned a Bachelor's in Genetics. You went to work in the Genetics field immediately after graduation. Now, you have taken classes in Japanese swordsmanship."

"Battojutsu and Iaido, yes."

"It's also listed that you speak and write three languages fluently, as well as being able to write in Latin."

"I can speak in Latin, too," I muttered.

"Putting it simply, Bear, we're looking for people who are willing to fight against physical evil, specifically monsters."

"We think you'd be pretty darn good, considering your personal skill set and warrior ancestry. What do you say?"

I thought for a second, and then I replied, ""Let me think about it. Have a nice day." I walked over to and opened the door.

"I'm sure you'll say yes," Trip said as he shook my hand. By his expression, I realized that I had accidentally put a dose of my enhanced strength into the gesture.

"I'll be glad to work with you," was Harbinger's comment as he shook my hand again. This time, he gave me a knowing smile before ushering his subordinate out the door.

I shut the door and eavesdropped on their conversation, unbeknownst to them. I had cracked the front window open to allow the sounds from the outside world to enter without impediment.

Trip groaned in pain and asked, "He got bit, didn't he?"

"Yes," Harbinger replied.

"So we have to kill him."

"No." That was unexpected. "At least, not yet." That was more like it. "Head back to your team; I have someone I have to see."

Then they got in their vehicle and left with the roar of a supercharged V8 engine. I let out the breath I had been holding and muttered, "Time to resume training."


	6. Arm Up

Within a week of the interview, I had begun taking classes in Kenjutsu. Then I received a call from Earl. It turned out that the latest training class had just started and the next class would start around Christmas Day. That gave me almost six months to get ready for my new job.

One of my first stops after receiving the call was a gun store in Tucson owned by a friend. I walked in, and he turned toward me as the bell above the door jingled. "Hey, Jerry. Glad to see you out and about."

"Mornin' Gerald," I muttered as I walked up to the counter and plunked my Public Defender down in front of my friend. "I need new shells."

"Winchester PDX-1s, right?"

"Well, with modification."

"What modification?"

"Silver."

He looked at me quizzically and replied, "With all due respect, Jeremiah, have you flipped your lid?"

I considered lying about my reason for wanting the silver shells, but there are just some people you just don't lie to; your battle buddy is one of them. "The Feds would probably make me disappear if I told you."

"Come this way." He led me to the back of the shop and opened a trap door leading to his store's basement (which also housed a small gunsmithing workshop). "I sweep this area for bugs every two hours." He bid me enter and I did. He followed and closed the door behind him. "It's also completely soundproofed, so none of the words said in here get out without my permission."

"What about visuals?"

"I have a few security cameras—"

"Shut them down, please."

"What?"

"Only for a minute. That is all the time I will need to show you my reasons."

"I hope that you're not manipulating my trust. If you're lying, our friendship is over." He walked over to a touch-screen control panel and punched in the command combination to shut down the cameras. Turning to face me, he asked, "Okay. What did you want to show me?"

"This," I replied as I shifted into my cougar form.

"Holy Mother of God!" he shouted as he took a step back.

"Yeah. I had a similar reaction when I was rudely awoken to the reality of these monsters."

"Damn."

"Yeah, well, now you know why I want those silver shells."

"You want to hunt them?"

"Yes. I found a company that does it professionally," I replied as I shifted back and began to return to the front of the store.

"Any idea how many job openings they have?"

I laughed lightly and asked, "You want to hunt monsters?"

"Already have some experience."

The atmosphere around us went dead still. "You mean you–?"

"Had a run-in with a monster? Yep."

"When?"

"I was seventeen. Eve of high school graduation. Some friends and I decided to party on a deserted island in Lake Erie. Well, we found out why the island was deserted. The others partied, drank, and smoked some pot. I didn't; I was supposed to drive the boat back to the mainland. I'd wondered if a secondhand high was possible when I first saw the three-headed snake. When it began eating three of us at once, one with each head, we all realized that adrenaline works better than a slap in the face at sobering someone up. We immediately began to run to our boat, but the snake, I later learned that it was a hydra, was faster. It chased us to an abandoned construction site where we made our stand. We found that it was a hydra when we took off one of its heads, and two grew in its place. When there were only two of us left, Shane Bradshaw used a forklift to pin it to a steel girder, allowing me to douse it with gasoline and toss a Molotov cocktail onto it. Unfortunately, the hydra coiled around the lift and cracked the fuel tank, which detonated."

I stood, stunned. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Once I was sure that the hydra was no more than a forty-foot long pile of ashes, I made my way back and scuttled the boat halfway. I told my folks and authorities that the boat had crashed and everyone had drowned. They accepted my explanation without question." He looked at the floor, sighed, looked back at me, and cautioned, "I do know this. You'll need some really heavy firepower for some of the things we'll be hunting, if all of the various mythical beasts are real. Wait here." He walked back to the basement. A minute later, he came back carrying a six-foot rifle. Actually, it would have been six feet long if it wasn't in the bullpup configuration.

"A PTRS-41? Where did you get one of those?"

"I have three," he chuckled. "Did I ever tell you that my grandpa was a Soviet war hero? Or that I have a cousin in the Spetznas? Anyway, I remembered that you liked bullpups for their compactness, so I decided to convert one of my anti-tank rifles to a bullpup configuration, just in case you ever became a collector. Not an easy task."

"Trigger break?"

"Ten pounds."

"Accuracy?"

"Can't really test that here."

"Prediction?"

"One MOA out to a kilometer."

I whistled appreciatively. "Excellent work. Recoil?"

"Eleven pounds, felt."

"Quite a thump with each shot."

"Better than it used to be" He handed the rifle to me and continued, "I also have a mid-range weapon for you." He lifted a much smaller rifle out of its cradle on the back wall. "Kel-Tec Rifle, Forward-ejecting Bullpup. Eight point one pounds, fully ambidextrous, chambered in 7.62 x 51 millimeter NATO; .308 on the civilian models. Twenty round, semi-automatic fed by an FAL-style magazine. Bullpup technology allows it to pack an eighteen-inch barrel in its twenty-six inch frame." He put it on the counter. "And, finally, your Judge needs an upgrade," he continued as he reached into the pistol cabinet and withdrew a rather large revolver. "I present to you the Taurus Raging Judge Magnum."

"How is it different from my Public Defender?"

"Well, for starters, it mounts a six-inch barrel rather than a two-and-a-half-inch. Second, your Public Defender fired only .45 Colt and two-and-a-half-inch .410-gauge shells. This fires .45 Colt, three-inch .410 shells, and, when you need a really powerful solid chunk of lead flying out of the barrel, .454 Casull."

".454? Gimme that."

"And, of course, I'll manufacture the ammo as you need it."

I patted his shoulder, pulled out my debit card, tossed it onto the counter and said, "Thank you. I'll pay you whatever you need."

"Can you afford it all?"

"For killing the lycanthrope that attacked me, I got paid one mil."

"No chump change in the monster-killing business, eh?"

"Nope."

He then snapped his fingers as he remembered something. "Oh. And, if you ever determine that you need more up-close firepower than your judge," he began as he walked over to a high-end gun safe. He performed the elaborate process that unlocked the safe and pulled out a weapon that looked most like an oversized F2000 assault rifle "I present to you the crown jewel of my collection: the Pancor Jackhammer. Ten-round revolver-style magazine. Dumps shells into your target at an average rate of four every second. There are only a few of these in existence."

"No. I wouldn't want to deprive you of such a rare weapon. Why not bring it yourself?"

He chuckled and replied, "You know I've always preferred the reliability of a good, old-fashioned pump gun over semis and autos. Thus, I'm bringing my newest acquisition." He pulled a rather unique-looking weapon off of the wall. "Kel-Tec KSG. Twelve-gauge, pump-action shotgun fed by dual tubular magazines."

"Allowing for two different ammunition loads."

"Precisely. Those two magazines yield a total ammo capacity of twelve three-inch or fourteen two-and-three-quarter-inch shells and one more in the chamber. I haven't actually had a chance to fire it, but I can wait." He laid the shotgun on the counter and pulled out a large, easily recognizable autoloader handgun.

I smiled as I recognized it. "Magnum Research Desert Eagle. .357, .44, or .50 Action Express. All magnum loads, using a seven- to nine-round detachable box magazine, depending on the caliber. That particular version mounts the ten-inch barrel."

He smiled as I rattled off the facts. "Glad to know that you didn't forget anything about this old friend. Can't go wrong with a classic."

"And your long-arm?"

"No need. I fight up close, remember?"

"And when you can't get close enough?"

He opened his mouth to protest, but he closed it when he realized that I had an unbeatably excellent point. "Fine," he conceded as he walked back to the safe and pulled out a very stout, heavy-looking, large-bore, scoped weapon.

My mind immediately began to scroll through its database of firearms to find a match. When it failed to find a suitable entry, I, inevitably, asked, "What is that behemoth?"

"It doesn't have an official name, yet, but I call it the 'Devastator.'" He reached back into the safe and pulled out something large and made of brass. "Check out its ammo," he continued as he tossed the object to me.

When I caught it, I thought he had tossed me a full clip for a Barrett M82A1. For an instant. Then I examined it more closely, and my jaw plummeted in shock. What I was holding was a single enormous ball cartridge. "Holy shit! What would you need a bullet this big for?"

"Elephants, rhinos, lightly armored vehicles or people, and most supernatural beasts. A thirty-five-hundred-grain projectile does not hit gently, no matter what its speed is. This particular rifle achieves about fifteen-hundred feet per second and seventeen-and-a-half-thousand foot/pounds of impact force." I gasped in awe…and I now knew what I wanted for Christmas this year. "The drawbacks are weight and recoil. It weighs thirty pounds, which helps dampen the recoil, but there's still enough oomph to throw someone off their feet if they aren't careful."

"May I take a shot with it?" I asked with a grin.

"Ha, ha. Knock yourself out," he replied evilly.

Two rounds and a heavily bruised shoulder (despite the use of my cougar form) later, I conceded that Gerald should be the one to wield the behemothic rifle ("hand cannon" was my term for it). And I mentally scratched the two-bore rifle off of my Christmas list.

"Let me know when you finish my custom ammo, will you?" I asked as I left the store.

"Sure."


	7. Lock and Load

It was three months before the desired call was received.

Three hours later, I walked into Gerald's shop. He was busy with another customer, so I waited patiently until their business was concluded. As the customer, a big man of African descent, walked by, I sniffled, as if I had a cold and was trying to hold back a runny nose. However, the information I gathered from drinking in his scent told me that he could see right through my bullshit, especially when he took his own lungful of my scent.

As for the scent, some of it was a mystery. There was a muddled feline/canine flavor, and there was also an acrid taint that I could not even begin to place.

After he left, I walked over to Gerald and asked, "New customer?"

"Actually, no. He's been pretty regular for about six months now. Comes in every couple of weeks for a brick of .30-30 rounds. Why?"

I leaned against the solid wood portion of the counter, facing the door, and replied, "Something doesn't smell right about him."

"Maybe. But let's get to the reason I called you." He reached into the ammunition shelves and pulled out one of the unique five-round en-bloc clips used by the PTRS-41. Pulling a single round out of the clip, the gunsmith continued, "For your fourteen-fives, I spent a considerable amount to figure out how to incorporate silver into the penetrator."

"Why not just cast the bullets in solid silver and be done with it?"

"Well, first, that much silver is prohibitively expensive. Second, a pure silver bullet would simply shatter against the thick skins of some monsters. Third, a pure silver bullet has ridiculously crappy ballistics, stemming mostly from its lesser density compared to lead."

"Point taken."

At that moment, the door opened to admit another customer. I would have ignored her but for the facts of her interesting scent and her words upon catching my scent. "Ah. You must be our new protégé."

I turned and examined her. She looked to be some variety of Native American–from what region, I couldn't tell–in her late twenties, early thirties in appearance. However, her scent told me a lot more. She was a skinwalker, a very timeworn and powerful one at that, whose species I had smelled before, but the memory fluttered just outside of my grasp. I did notice the same acrid taint in her scent that marked the previous customer, though it wasn't as strong. "Hey, Sam. What can a get for you?" Gerald asked, either ignoring or not noticing my reaction.

"Three-inch PDX-1s. The ones you guarantee will go through my old semi."

"Coming right up."

As he turned to search for the specified shells, she walked up to the counter, and I asked, "Benelli?"

"Saiga."

"Whoa. Vintage?"

"Aye." At the tail-end of that word, she noticed the silver-infused AP rounds. "How much does he know?" she asked as her hand brushed the jaguar-head pommel of a good-sized bladed weapon.

Seeing the pommel provided just the nudge my mind needed to recall the scent. "You're a jaguar!" I blurted, ignoring her question. "That's why I couldn't place your scent earlier; I haven't seen one of those big cats since my Mom took me to the Roman zoo when I was twelve."

"Huh. Didn't know you were a skinwalker, too, Samantha," Gerald commented as he returned with the shotgun shells.

"Everything," Samantha said in tandem with an exasperated sigh. "Yes, I'm a werejaguar."

"What does an acridly tainted skinwalker scent mean?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"Oh," she began sadly. "We were hoping that you wouldn't find out about the fact that the darker side of our history still influences us today this early in your immortality."

"Dar–? You're a rogue?" I yelped as I took a step away and extended my claws (a very useful trait only feline skinwalkers possess). I had, when I first found that I could extend my claws in human form, dissected one of my own fingers to find out how it worked. I had found that the end joint of each finger, and the thumb, had become a structure most similar to a standard cat's finger, with the claw hidden in a sheath that was itself encapsulated by the skin of the fingertip. The muscles that extended the claw were threaded along the rest of the length of the finger.

"I was a man-eater, once. But I have not eaten human flesh since the day I met Jarvin, the man who would become my husband."

"And the guy who left a few minutes ago?" I asked as I sheathed my claws.

"That hyena has been repentant, our term for a former man-eater, for six months."

"A hyena? Then how come he had a feline tinge to his aroma?"

"You don't know? Genetically, hyenas are more closely related to cats than dogs."

That was a bit of an eye-opener. Before I could respond to that comment, Gerald stated, "Jerry and I were just discussing some specialty hunting rounds I crafted. Care to join in?"

"No thank you. I can smell the silver, so I know you are to seek employment with MHI."

"You know of them?"

She laughed and replied with an Alabama accent, "Honey, if a skinwalker doesn't learn about those hunters, they will not survive their first decade." Dropping the accent, she added, "Good day and good luck. You'll especially need the latter." With that, she paid for her ammo and left.

"I wonder how many skinwalkers I've unknowingly supplied," Gerald mused rhetorically.

"No way to know." I turned and faced him again and asked, "Where were we?"

"Your special rounds. For the PTRS, the bullet consists of a specially constructed penetrator and a thick, heavy jacket. The penetrator is ninety-two-and-a-half percent pure silver, which should be enough to ruin any lycanthrope's day, and seven-and-a-half percent tungsten carbide, which strengthens the core and gives it enough weight to punch through an inch-and-a-half thick steel plate. The silver is lighter than most metals, so, to balance out the discrepancy, the main body of the bullet is solid lead. Rounding out the design is a thick steel jacket. The final result is a nine hundred ninety grain light-armor-piercing projectile. With nearly twenty grams of powder behind it, the muzzle velocity should approach thirty-four hundred feet per second and the impact energies are upwards of twenty-four thousand foot/pounds."

I whistled in appreciation. "Not bad for an old warhorse. I doubt there'll be anything left standing after I serve 'em one of those."

"Nothing left alive, at any rate. "Now, I was about to make all of our solid rounds in that same way, when I realized that there was a simpler and easier method, courtesy of Hornady."

He disappeared into his basement for a moment and returned with a spent .308 bullet. It had expanded like a blossoming rose, meaner than any normal hollow-point, and reeked of silver. I had never seen anything exactly like it; at least, nothing like it from ammunition made by Hornady.

"Are they based a little off of Winchester's Black Talons?"

He shook his head. "Not even close. They're built off of Hornady's new 'Critical Defense' rounds. They basically fold a small portion of the jacket over the lip of the hollow-point and crimp it to hold on to the core, which folds out and creates a nasty wound channel. Those are able to beat an FBI test for lethality after penetrating cover. Now, for these, I traded out the inner half of the lead core for pure silver. This does make the bullet a few grains lighter, however, resulting in a slight reduction in range and energy, though a slight increase in velocity makes up for the loss of energy. For example, your RFB normally maxes out its range at about a klick, but these rounds will probably knock that distance down by ten to twenty-five meters."

"Okay. I'll keep that in mind and compensate for it." I thought for a moment, and then I asked, "What do Devastator's new rounds look like?"

"The two-gauge isn't getting the silver treatment."

"Why not?" I queried, though I suspected that I already knew the reason.

And I was right. "Because I'd rather not pay over eighty dollars for a single shot. And, before you ask, I have a different gun to deliver silver payloads at long range." He reached down behind the counter and pulled out a lever-action rifle. "Rossi Rio Grande, with seven rounds of .45-70-500 on tap."

"The original government load," I commented absently.

"Yep, and I made sure that the silvered .45-70s weigh exactly five hundred grains."

"And our shotgun shells?"

"Ah, yes. That's where things get interestingly simple. That silver-tungsten carbide alloy that I used for your fourteen point five millimeter penetrators gives surprisingly good ballistics when used as the sole construction material for the PDX-1s." Pulling out crates of 14.5 x 114 millimeter, .45-70, .45 Colt, .454 Casull, .44 Automag, .308 Winchester, and .410- and 12-guage ammunition, he added, "I probably don't need to tell you this, but I will anyway. We only have one hundred rounds in each caliber, so make each shot count."

"Understood." Picking up two crates, I continued, "Ready to load up?"

"I doubt your little Focus could hold all of our gear."

"Oh, I upgraded to something a little bigger since my last visit. I think you'll like it quite a bit."

Picking up a single crate, Gerald replied, "I'll be the judge of that. Lead on, my friend."

When we stepped outside, I nodded toward my new car and proudly stated, "There she is."

I heard his awe-filled gasp and the shifting of the ammo as he nearly dropped his crate in shock. "A Lincoln Town Car? I've always wanted one of those, but I never had the money to buy one."

"I told you you'd like it," I chuckled as I popped the trunk and stowed the two crates I was carrying. "And, when we get to Monster Hunter International, she's all yours."

As he handed me the case he had carried out, I heard Gerald's heart, literally, skip a beat. "Okay. You just paid for all of your silver bullets."

I simply laughed, and we went back inside for the next load.

After we loaded the final crates of ammo, we began loading our firearms. The cavernous trunk was one of the reasons I'd purchased the First Generation Town Car (and then updated the engine); the other was that I liked the boxy battering-ram shape.

Gerald had collected a fair number of rather rare firearms over the years. In addition to the Pancor, the gun-nut former Marine owned a Gabbet-Fairfax Mars (one of the earliest and rarest semi-automatic pistols), an Automag .44 (which he prized too much to use in combat), a Merwin-Hulbert Frontier-model revolver, a Colt Model 1855 Revolving Rifle (still in its original cap-and-ball configuration), a Johnson M1941 semi-automatic rifle (a competitor to the M1 Garand), a PPsh-41 (the ultimate handheld bullet hose), and a Sturmgewehr-44 (the world's first assault rifle). And those were only the weapons he did **not** want to part with.

After our arsenal was fully stocked, I had Gerald gather several changes of clothes for himself while I did my best to load as much of his workshop as I could into the back seat of the luxury car, starting with the bullet molds and loading dies. When he came back out, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, Gerald told me, "I'm selling the store."

"Why?"

"I don't know when, or even if, I'll be coming back here. Might as well have someone else take care of this place," he explained as he tossed the bag into the remaining space on the seat.

"I guess."


	8. Welcome to MHI

The sale took two short weeks, and then we were off. The directions Earl had given me over the phone led to some (pardon the expression) middle-of-bum-fuck-nowhere town called Cazador, Alabama (whose "Welcome to" sign proudly announced that it had a population of 686). The only two noticeable features were a catfish factory (which one could tour, if they were that bored) and a nameless general store with an attached gas station. I filled up the tank and bought two overpriced, flat Cokes (in old-timey metal-capped glass bottles, no less), one for each of us, at said store and we continued on.

After several minutes, we came upon a sign advertising MHI's presence. The sign also announced that trespassers would be summarily executed (well, it did not use those terms, but that was my interpretation). A few more minutes brought us to the front gate. I stepped out of the car and walked up to the guard, who was sitting next to a portable heater (Yes, it can get cold in Alabama.) and a radio blaring heavy metal music. I cringed and regretted the fact that I had never bought an MP3 player or an iPod or something to drown out that noise that claimed to be music.

The guard himself looked familiar, but I could not place the memory…until I saw his weapon hanging barrel-down from a sling on his right shoulder. "Would you be a member of Owen Pitt's team?"

The big man stood (He was bigger than me!), laughing, and replied, "You could say that." He held out his hand. "I'm Owen. And you're the Tucson werecougar killer, right? Earl told me about you."

I nodded and replied, "Yes. Jeremiah Lusano." As I shook his left hand (his right never left his shotgun's grip), something flickered behind his eyes. What it was, I would not learn for months. What it did, I learned in the next second, as the barrel of his weapon began to rise. I blocked it before it could reach the kill-box of my torso, but a large, thick blade swung out and he drove it into my thigh. Though the silver inlay of the blade hurt like hell, I knew that the wound would heal; I was miffed that I was going to have to burn that pair of khakis. "Ow. Damn it, I really liked these pants." I pushed the weapon back toward him slowly, easing the bayonet out of my flesh. Examining the rapidly closing wound, I assessed, "Well, you missed my femur, so I will only be limping for a minute or two."

"How?"

"How what?"

"How are you just shrugging off the silver?"

"I guess it just does not have as severe an effect on a werecougar as it would on a werewolf."

By this time, the wound had completely knitted itself shut, so I walked back to the car and pulled a spare pair of pants out of my duffel bag. As I did so, I saw Gerald draw his Desert Eagle and heard him say, "Don't even think about it."

I knew what was going on, even though my back was turned. Owen must have moved to train one of his guns on me, but my battle buddy was not going to let that happen. After changing my pants, I asked, "How did you realize I'd been bitten?"

"I saw the memory."

"Well, if you can see memories, take a gander at this one," I replied as I brought up the memory of my first day (after the first night, as I did not want him learning about the wolf-walkers just yet) and tapped a finger against his forehead.

As I'd hoped, the flicker, which most resembled a black lightning bolt, returned. Rather than comment on it, Owen directed us to the Newbie parking area, "in front of the biggest building," and told us that we were the first ones here (which I doubted).

After parking, grabbing our sidearms and their accompanying holsters, and locking the doors (After all, the Town Car itself was worth about thirty, forty thousand dollars, and there were about half a million dollars' worth of guns in the trunk.), I studied the MHI compound. Most of it was a temporary settlement with several false-front buildings and mobile homes, but there was a single permanent structure. That building, made out of red brick, would have been more appropriate in a military dictator's palace complex than out here in rural Alabama.

Entering the pseudo-fortress, my first assessment was strengthened by the presence of a portcullis in the lobby's ceiling near the main doors. The primary feature of the lobby (other than the portcullis) was the main desk, manned by an elderly woman who seemed the kind, matronly type…until one noticed the Smith & Wesson Model 29 (I believe that was what the weapon was, as it was hard to tell details when the only evidence of it was the imprint it left on her shirt.) in a police detective-style shoulder holster under her sweater. She smiled as we approached. "Hello, dears. You must be here for the orientation."

"Yes, ma'am." I almost snapped to attention out of habit.

"You the one that sliced up a werecougar?"

"Well, actually, I stabbed it to death."

"Ah. Well, same difference. I myself used to hunt lycanthropes, myself, but one of 'em clawed my leg off. I got this nice, hard plastic one. But I'm getting off track. Sign in here," she said as she pushed a clipboard toward us. True to Owen's word, we were the first to arrive, and my name became the first on the list. After my friend signed his name, she asked, "I don't remember being told about you. What's your story?"

"Hydra nearly fifteen years ago. I covered it up better than the government."

"A hydra? Boy, you must be good."

"No, ma'am. Just lucky. It was my friend's sacrifice of his life that allowed me to kill it."

"That happens a lot in our business, I'm afraid," the lady said as she shook her head sadly. "But where are my manners, I'm Dorcas. Many kids these days scoff at that, but my ma said it was a right biblical name, and it has suited me for close to seventy years. Any punk kids make fun of my name, I'll put my plastic foot in their ass. Got that, boys?"

"Yes, ma'am," we both responded with one voice as we drew ourselves to attention. Her attitude matched that of one of my drill sergeants.

"Good. Go down the hall. Double door on the right. That's the meetin' hall; that's where orientation will begin. Now, scat. I've got important business."

Wordlessly, we left her to her online poker game. As we walked down the hallway she had indicated, I noticed that the wall was covered with nearly five hundred silver plaques with a name and a pair of dates well over two decades apart (on average). Realizing what they were, I bowed my head in respect for this memorial to fallen Hunters. I looked up and read the inscription engraved into a wooden plaque in the wall above the silver plaques. "Sic transit gloria mundi."

"What does that mean?"

"It's Latin for 'The glory of Man is fleeting.'"

"Hmm. Well, let's find a good seat before anyone else grabs them."

It turned out that we needn't have hurried at all. The meeting room where the orientation was to be also served double-duty as the compound's mess hall (I hated the civilian term "cafeteria."), so it could accommodate hundreds of people. We chose to place ourselves near the back of the room. The next person to arrive looked around as if unable to believe that he was, indeed, only the third person to arrive.

He was a fairly average individual, with chestnut brown hair, white skin, and a medium build. What made him stand out was the fact that he could not be a month older than eighteen. "What is your name, young man?"

The boy hesitated until I introduced Gerald and myself. "I'm Martin Coslaw II."

I blinked in surprise at the name. "You wouldn't be here because of a werewolf, would you?"

"Well, yes and no. My father was the one who killed the beast, but his disability means he can't hunt, so I'll be hunting in his stead," he replied as he patted the thirty-eight caliber Colt Woodsman revolver in the holster on his hip.

"Is that…?"

"Yep. It's the same gun my dad used to kill that werewolf all those years ago."

By that time, more people had filed in, and I was hearing conversations about monsters I had never even heard about. However, one very frightening possibility came to light: some of H.P. Lovecraft's creations were real and existed as he described.

At one point, Gerald jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow and pointed at someone who looked vaguely like Owen. "Oh my God! That's Mosh!"

"Who?"

"The lead guitarist for Cabbage Point Killing Machine."

"Gerald, how many times must I tell you that I have a completely different taste in music than you? Thus, I have not earthly idea what band you are talking about."

A few minutes later, Earl walked in at the front of the room, followed by Owen, Trip, a balding man with a fiery red beard that hung down to his waist (braided, no less!), a battle-hardened but otherwise covergirl-material blonde woman, a raven-haired beauty (some would say; I had no opinions on the matter; never had any interest in people.) with glasses, a really big man (bigger, even, than Owen!) who had a broken, empty eye socket and extensive, though healed, damage to other regions of his skull, a man who carried himself with the air of a retired veteran who had seen heavy combat, and a Southern farmer with a large-bore rifle slung across one shoulder. Except for the werewolf, they all sat down in the row of chairs facing the audience.

Once the sixty or so of us were completely silent, Harbinger began a well-practiced speech. "Hello. I'm Earl Harbinger. Many of you know me already. I'm the Director of Operations here at MHI. Welcome to our new Hunter orientation. Let's get one thing straight right off the bat. We hunt monsters. That's what we do. Every one of you has had the experience to realize that there is a lot more out there than what you've been led to believe."

I heard (To this day, I'm not sure if anyone else did, or even could) someone scoff and mutter, "Tell me about it."

One of the beauties of being a skinwalker is that your mind is able to process far more sensory input (including sounds) simultaneously than a normal human could ever hope to. Thus, it took no effort to fully comprehend both the distraction and Harbinger's speech, the latter of which hadn't skipped a beat.

"In the coming days, I would just ask for one thing. Keep your mind flexible. Don't get caught up in what you're sure is real, because if you can't believe in them, you can't fight them. Over the past several years, we've encountered more weird shit than in the hundred prior years combined. However, the introductory history lesson is taught by the chief executive officer, so, without further ado, I introduce my niece, Julie Shackleford, CEO of Monster Hunter International."

The raven-haired woman stood, stepped forward, Earl sat in the seat she had vacated, and she began to regale us with the history of the company, starting with the company founder, "Bubba" Ray Shackleford slaying a coven-full of vampires in the early 1890s, to the official formation of the company, to the massive span when civilian monster hunting was banned, to the Cursed One and Shadow Lord incidents. That brought us to today. After the history lesson was complete, she warned, "I look forward to working with those of you who make it through our training process. It's going to push your abilities farther and harder than you though possible. Good luck. You'll need it."

With that, she gave the floor back to the Director. "With a couple of exceptions, all of you were contacted after surviving some sort of monster attack. Trust me, just surviving means that each and every one of you is statistically significant. We personally invited well over a hundred people for this session; as you can see, not even half that number has shown up. That means that you're either braver or dumber than the others."

"I vote braver!" one Newbie shouted. There were many murmurs of agreement.

"That may be so, but you might still be stupid for accepting. I'm going to be flat-out honest with you. I'm sure you all saw the wall outside. The one with all the pretty silver things on it? Each of those represents a fallen Hunter. There is little more than a hundred years of history on that wall. What we do is dangerous, sometimes stupidly dangerous, but it is necessary, more necessary than you might realize for reasons you'll come to understand with time. The only way that we win is if we work together as a team and be every bit as tough and ruthless and clever as the things we're chasing.

"Many of you will was out of training, or get kicked out if you ain't up to snuff. That's fine, so don't get hurt feelings. This job is not for everybody. There ain't no shame in quitting. If at any time you decide you want to quit, no problem. Talk to Dorcas. We'll write you out a check for your time and there are no hard feelings. Keep in mind, however, that if you talk about us in public, the nice men from the Monster Control Bureau, that most of you have already met, will probably kill you." He swept a predatory glare over all of us to ensure that we understood.

"Your teachers will consist of experienced Hunters. Listen to them carefully. Read everything that you're given. Your life or the lives of your teammates may depend on your skills or knowledge." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder and continued, "We're not normally teachers. The folks behind me are actually our two most successful teams, mine and Owen's. I trust each of them with my life, and any of them would trust me with theirs. If any one of them decides that any one of you does not have what it takes to be a Hunter, then you're gone. That is all. Don't screw around with us. We're much better killers than we are babysitters."

"Some of you are here because you're tough, some are smart, some are warriors, some are not; it doesn't matter. Everybody will go through the same training. We recruited many of you because of your brains, and though you will probably never need to be on an actual hunting mission, you will still be trained to the same standards in weapons, tactics, and other skills. You need to understand the people you are supporting as good as you understand yourself. Those of you we recruited because you're fighters, you will need to learn every single bit of monster-related information that the smart folks learn. For those of you who think you are both smart and tough, don't get cocky because you will probably be the first to get eaten.

"Training will last until we decide that you're good enough. After that, you will be assigned to your duties. Some of you will be assigned to Hunter teams. We have teams stationed all around the country. Those teams respond to crises as they develop. Other people will work in direct support of the teams. We will go into greater details about how this entire thing works as training progresses. Every employee will be paid bimonthly according to your position. For the Hunters, any PUFF your personal team earns will be shared by the whole company, with your team getting the largest percentage. Think of it as profit sharing. That means that if your team wins a huge bounty, you don't get to keep it all. Be careful not to bitch too much about that, however, because next week it will probably be some other team that wins the bit one and not you. Don't worry, though; the lowest paid employee we have probably made more than you did in the last year, especially with the economy in such sorry shape." There was a little bit of laughter at that. "Our business is monsters, and business is excellent.

"Any questions?" Looking around, I could tell that a lot of questions were waiting to be given a voice, but the werewolf's posture was interpreted by most everyone as "The answer had better be 'no.'" "Okay, everybody grab your crap and follow me. I'll show you where you sleep, and then we get started. We have work to do."


	9. A Higher Power Beckons

"Work" was an understatement, especially in the area of firearms. Many of the Newbies had never even handled a weapon before, much less fired one. With training, they might become decent. And then there a few who I felt would most certainly be kicked out because of their attitude toward the weapons. These were the people who believed they knew how to use a gun solely because they played first-person-shooter video games. Their lack of respect for their firearms had nearly caused more than one accident on the range, mainly from failure to always treat their weapon as if it were loaded.

Owen was our primary firearms instructor, and, two weeks in, Gerald did something that amazed the experienced hunter.

That day, we were being trained in the use of pump-action shotguns. To determine our baseline skill, we were doing what was called a Dozier drill. The drill consisted of five 8-inch x 8-inch steel plates, each a yard away from the next in the line, set up at ten yards away. Our objective was to hit each plate with a Remington 870 in as little time as possible.

I had a preference for semi-autos over pump guns, but, as Owen had explained, MHI had some specialty shotgun ammunition that was incompatible with autoloaders. Still, I had been trained in the use of Mossberg pump-actions in the Corps, so I was still able to get the drill done in three seconds, which Owen had said was respectable. However, at the beginning of the lessons, he had demonstrated a time of one-point-seven seconds.

Then it was Gerald's turn. He had always preferred pumps to semis, so he put up an impressive score. He put all five targets down with less than half a second spent on pumping, acquiring the next target, and pulling the trigger. Owen stared at the shot-registering timer he held. "One point eight-eight? Wow. Only a hundredth of a second slower than my first time here. You're a natural."

Gerald simply smirked in reply.

However, I got to impress the instructors in my own way when we were being trained in the use of rifles. I was situated behind a sandbag rest upon which a Remington 700 was positioned. I had fired several M40s (one of the militarized versions of the 700) in the Corps, so I needed only a couple of practice shots to familiarize myself with this particular weapon's firing quirks, especially the recoil difference between the 7.62 mm NATO load the M40 fires and the .308 the 700 fires.

After reloading, I announced, "Shooter ready."

My target was a high-visibility model, with black target-ring-marked paper taped to a block of red foam set twenty-five yards away; a nice touch, the red. The purpose of the test was, like the Dozier drill, to see how well we could combine speed and accuracy.

"Stand by," our rifle instructor, who turned out to be Julie, announced.

I drew in a deep breath and focused the entirety of my being on the coming shots to the point that each breath seemed to echo in my head. The starting beep of the timer had barely registered by the time I was pulling the trigger. Immediately, my hand darted to the bolt and cycled it in a second. I repeated that process for the remaining three rounds in the magazine, leaving the bolt open after the last shot.

A wolfish grin spread across my lips; even from where I was sitting, I could see that each bullet had gone more or less into the exact same spot. The grin spread as Julie confirmed, "Six point four seconds. With a spread of less than half an inch. I'm the team sharpshooter, and I can't shoot that well."

"Six years as a Marine sniper, ma'am," I replied as I removed the grin.

One of the other Newbies retorted, "That sounded like a semi." _Nope, I had simply practiced for hundreds of hours to cycle an M40's bolt as fast as possible_.

"Lusano, let's see just how good you are." Owen turned to Milo, the instructor with the red beard who took care of MHI's armory and special equipment and barked, "Milo! Set up a target at one hundred yards."

"Make it two hundred, please," I objected without taking my contentious glare away from the younger instructor. "Anything less is a boring sissy's shot." Though my vocal tone remained perfectly level and calm, no one missed the intended slight, and I heard several sharp gasps from the assembled Newbies.

Owen either ignored it or recovered immediately and said, "No scopes, just iron sights."

"Four rounds."

"Four centers."

"And we get all the time we need for each shot."

"Fine. Let's see who's the better rifleman."

Catching his tone, I asked, "You do not want to be second-best at anything, do you?" The glare he gave me told me so even before the verbal affirmative. "Well, I shall apologize in advance for being a source of aggravation, sir, but neither do I."

"We shall see."

As I sat back down and began to reload, I heard Gerald bet on my shooting, telling one other Newbie, "A hundred bucks says Jerry outshoots Owen."

"You're on."

As I removed the scope, I thought about Owen's skills as a marksman. He was an incredible pistoleer, and his abilities with a shotgun were un-friggin-believable. However, his skills with a rifle were an unknown quantity.

"I'll shoot first," Owen stated.

"All yours," I replied as I stood and stepped back. _Good. Show me how well I must shoot._

While Owen took a minute to fire all four rounds, he was a very good marksman; my sniping instructor in the Corps would have liked the pattern. A three-quarter inch grouping at that range of iron sights was very impressive.

However, "very impressive" was too low a standard to hold myself to. After Owen reloaded the weapon and stood, I settled myself back behind the Remington.

Now, one thing to note is that a Remington 700 is **never** meant to be used without its scope mounted. Thus, its scope rail is the closest the sniper rifle comes to having iron sights. In position, I began to meditate and focus my entire being on the next four shots. Soon enough, the entire world, with the exception of my firing lane, fell away from my perception.

Once I instinctively felt that the rifle's alignment was perfect, I took the shot…and the next and the next, and the last, pausing only long enough to recover from and correct for the recoil of the previous shout, my hand flicking automatically up to cycle the bolt at lightning speed (Get it? Bolt, lightning…yeah, never mind.) Even before the echo of the last round's discharge had faded, I knew that each shot had been perfect.

After bringing in the target and measuring my pattern, Julie whistled and muttered, "Half an inch? Damn, he's good."

Behind me, I could hear grumbling as several Newbies paid their lost bets.

"Lusano!" Owen barked.

"Sir?"

"Tell everyone how you use your rifle. Everyone here could learn something. A single shot could be the only difference between you killing the monster or the monster killing you or your team, so learn to make the shot count. It could save your life. On my first mission, a wight would have bitten my face off had Julie not put a bullet right between its eyes." He stopped, waiting for me to speak. When he realized that I was awaiting for express confirmation that he had finished, he added, "Well, go ahead, smart-ass."

I nodded and began, "There are many factors that allow a shooter to become good. The three most important are familiarity with your weapon, the ability to calculate shooting variables such as range and wind pattern on the fly, and the ability to feel the shot with your entire mind, body, and soul. For the first, practice with your weapon until you know it better than your mother, your spouse, your children, or, if you possess none of those things, the back of your hand. For the second, also practice. Let me give you an example of calculating range." I turned and searched for something unique. And I did. "See that gnarled old willow past the end of the range? How far away is it?" I pointed at Gerald and added, "You received the same training I did, so you don't get to say it." I'd calculated the distance to be four hundred fifty yards. I heard guesstimations ranging from three hundred yards to nearly a thousand. One Newbie, however, was spot-on correct. "Good job. Four hundred fifty yards. Now, how did you figure that out?"

"I took a ten-point buck at that distance, once."

I nodded and smiled in appreciation. "Good. Make a note. To accurately estimate the range of a shot, take what you know and work from there. Next variable, wind. What is the speed and direction, nearest you can tell?" I'd pegged it at between five to seven miles per hour and going east-by-northeast.

Without hesitation, a different Newbie replied, "Six point two miles per hour bearing three-oh-seven degrees." After all eyes turned toward her, she continued, "You combine life-long autism with twelve years as an ATC at a low-traffic airport and see what happens."

Milo's chuckling forestalled other comments.

I quickly returned the conversation back to the sniping lesson. "Now, for those of you who have not spent your adult lives memorizing wind gauges, wind direction is the more easily measured property. There are two methods to do that. First, look at the surrounding vegetation, tall grass being the best, and see how it bends. If there is no vegetation supple enough to yield to the wind, lick your finger and hold it in the air until one side gets cold. As for wind speed, that is something that practice, alone, will allow you to gauge.

"Now, the third major factor for good shooting is also the hardest to master. To take the best shot possible, one must focus every fiber of their being on the shot. Judging from your expressions, most of you have no clue what that means. It means that, by the time the shooter pulls the trigger, they have focused so intently on making the shot count that the rest of the world simply fades away from existence for them. A glorious calm settles over you. Time seems to slow. Then you see the results of your shot…I apologize. I do not have many fond sniping memories."

"Okay. That's it for today. Class dismissed."

I believe I managed to mutter a weak "Thank you, sir" as I began to walk back to my room in the barracks.

That night, as Gerald, the smug bastard, was counting his winnings from my shooting, I drifted off to sleep, and I had the first dream I'd had in decades.

I stood in a bright forest in my cougar form. The scents of civilization just didn't exist in this place. It was, for lack of a better word, magical. This forest resonated with the beast within me, and, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, the entirety of my soul felt at peace.

"Welcome, my child," said a voice that was deep and rich with vitality. The tone was also that which one would expect a kind, caring father to have. I turned to look at the speaker and was only mildly surprised to see another werecougar, only (and, to this day, I do not know how I knew) he was far older and more powerful than I could ever hope to be even if I lived until the end of time. He tapped the boulder upon which he sat and continued, "Come, sit. There is much to discuss."

Before I budged, I wanted to know one thing. "Who are you?"

"My apologies, young one. I sometimes forget that my name is no longer known to most who live today. I am Garuntin, the Spirit of the Panther."

"'Spirit?' Like the Native American Coyote?"

"Their culture is one of the few that still acknowledges our existence as anything more than a fantasy. But, that is a lesson for another time. Please, sit."

And I did, taking care not to crush my tail. "What is it you wished to discuss with me, noble Spirit?" I asked with the full respect Garuntin deserved.

"Quite a courteous young panther you are. But I digress. There is a great evil descending on this world; as it does not directly threaten our existence, we are forbidden from directly intervening. Nor can any one force of good defeat it."

"But, let me guess, all forces of good can win if they can work cooperatively." I made sure to put emphasis on the "if."

"Exactly," the Spirit replied with a nod.

"What kind of evil would we be fighting?"

"That, I am afraid, I cannot tell."

I hated any kind of briefing where information was withheld from me or my comrades-in-arms. "Why the hell not?"

"Please stay calm or you shall shatter the link." As I brought my temper back under control, he sighed and continued, "The Great Spirit has decreed that we cannot say anything that could compromise any sentient's free will."

"Even if said free will leads to our own destruction?"

"Nearly. If the worst does happen and Man would fall, I and several others have agreed to openly defy the Great Spirit and directly fight this evil." A lupine howl reverberated through the forest. "Our time is up. Good luck."

Once he said that, he faded away, followed by the entirety of the forest.

I awoke with a start. _Wow. What a dream._

"Hey, Jerry, shift back. And hurry up about it, before someone comes," Gerald pleaded in a worried whisper.

I wondered what he was talking about until I looked down at my chest and saw a coat of light brown fur. I had somehow shifted in my sleep! Suppressing my yowl of shock, I focused and changed back to my human form. Fortunately, I'd worn only a pair of loose-fitting boxers to bed, so I had not damaged my clothes.

"What were you dreaming about?"

"Pardon?"

"You were muttering in your sleep. Some odd language. Wasn't Latin, sure as Hell wasn't Italian. Sounded closest to Hebrew, but…less refined, if you get my meaning."

I rubbed the back of my head and, scoffing quietly, murmured, "You'd think me completely insane if I told you."

"Jeremiah, insane things are now our business. Spill it."

"All right. I was conversing with the Spirit of the Cougar."

Gerald was silent for a moment, thinking, before replying, "Crazy as that sounds, I'll go out on a limb and believe that it's true. What'd you talk about?"

"Well…" I began, but then the wind shifted, bringing in a very familiar scent through the open window, which faced the main building. "Earl's coming."

Seconds later, the Director leaned on the windowsill. Seeing that I was already awake, he stated, "So, I reckon you got a spirit visit, too."

"Yes, sir."

"Who dragged you into their meeting?"

"The Spirit who spoke to me was Garuntin, patron of the Panther."

"Huh. I got Loreli, the wolf-lady."

"It appears that the Spirits are keeping their counsel limited to their species."

"Yeah."

"What do we do next, sir?"

"Let's keep this a secret between the three of us for now. I have a feeling that someone else we two lycanthropes know will come soon to give his input on the matter."


End file.
